196 TOBACCO-PIPES, CIGARS, ETC. 



and it must be understood that perfection cannot be 

 attained if the pipe once lighted be allowed to cool; 

 so an arrangement was made that it should pass from 

 mouth to mouth of a regiment of soldiers, the owner 

 of the pipe paying the bill. After seven months a 

 most perfect pipe was handed to the " fortunate " 

 proprietor, with a bill for more than one hundred 

 pounds sterling, which had been the cost of the tobacco 

 sacrificed in the feat* Meerschaums are frequently 

 mounted in silver, and have sometimes been deco- 

 rated with jewels, so that their cost has been excessive. 

 They are generally enriched with ornaments in high 

 relief, executed with much beauty, and embracing a 

 vast variety of design. The care with which this 

 material may be moulded and fashioned by the artist 

 (for such he is), who decorates the bowl, allows the 

 greatest ingenuity and elaboration of design to be 

 exhibited in this branch of art-manufacture. Most 

 pipe-sellers and tobacconists can exhibit specimens 

 which are perfect miracles of patience and labour, and 

 are worth forty or fifty pounds each. They are gene- 

 rally enshrined in velvet, and shown like the jewels 

 of a Marchioness. 



Dr. Dibdin, in his Bibliographical Tour in France 

 and Germany, speaks of Vienna as a city characterised 

 by a love of smoking — " a good Austrian thinks he can 

 never pay too much for a good pipe," and he instances 



* This is an "extreme case," but many tobacconists are conversant with 

 customers willing to pay for a due amount of smoking in new pipes. 



